Grayson deserves to win SuperContest
Chad Millman
Brian Grayson had just won a poker tournament at The Mirage. He got a trophy, a nice one, and he was proud of it, both the winning and the reward. It was time to go back to his hotel, settle in and think about betting some football before he headed home to Albuquerque to see his wife, Stephanie, seven months pregnant, and his two young daughters.
Grayson is South Philly, born and raised. He started betting football pools with his uncle Butch before he was 10. After high school he spent more than a decade working parties and on the radio as DJ Sly Bri. But he wanted a bigger life. He went to Arizona State University, where he met a girl, and the girl was from New Mexico. He moved there to be with her, attended law school there, became a lawyer there and, instead of Saturday nights working turntables and Sundays at Philadelphia Eagles games, he made occasional trips to Las Vegas. "I'm a ham-and-egger now," he says. "My wife didn't want to be married to a gambler."
<offer style="font: 12px/16px verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; word-spacing: 0px; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">As he walked through The Mirage's casino floor, he felt a stabbing pain in his ankle. It had been sore for a couple months, ever since a trip back east, but it wasn't anything like this. The pain was debilitating, so bad he had to sit down in the middle of the floor, amidst the tables and slots. He held onto his trophy. The Mirage security guards thought he was drunk and shooed him away. Grayson hobbled out to The Strip -- he was staying at Treasure Island next door -- but couldn't make it there. "I had to sit down in the middle of the sidewalk," he says.
The next day he needed a wheelchair to get off the plane at the airport. Stephanie met him at baggage claim with a pair of crutches. The diagnosis from the doctor was that it was a cyst and some ligament damage, and Grayson was scheduled for surgery. "It was supposed to be a 90-minute surgery," he remembers. "They were done in 20. They knew I had cancer."
Grayson's tone is rat-a-tat-tat South Philly. You can hear the streets in his voice. No nonsense, no pausing for dramatic effect. Matter of fact. I met him standing in line to sign up for the Las Vegas Hotel SuperContest. We were both lingering at the back of a crowd. He was on crutches. I looked down and noticed one of his feet was missing, his pant leg folded around his calf. We started talking about the contest, about all the people signing up, about what we were going to do that weekend. I hadn't known him 10 minutes -- I don't think I even knew his name yet -- before I asked him, "What happened to your foot?" Some people make you feel like you have to skirt an issue. Others, like Grayson, invite you to ask them anything, without saying a word.
The cancer in his foot might have saved his life, because that wasn't the only tumor. There was another one in his lungs. "You should have seen how it looked with me crying in the oncology department," Grayson told me when we caught up again on the phone this week. "With my pregnant wife and two kids. The doctor told me if my foot hadn't started hurting I would have been dead by now, they wouldn't have found the other tumor."
Five days before his third daughter was born, Grayson started chemotherapy. He was too sick to be in the room with Stephanie. Over the next several months he dropped more than 60 pounds, but the tumors didn't disappear. That July he had a trip planned to Vegas -- he was going to sign up for the SuperContest for the first time. "It's always been on my bucket list," he says. Instead, doctors removed 15 percent of his lung and amputated his foot.
Amputees complain about phantoms. An itch they can't scratch, an ache in a spot where nothing exists. There is nothing comparable for the fully limbed, a recurring state of being just out of reach. Pain followed by confusion followed by frustration, the feelings of a bad beat that never quite go away. "It's as bad as one can imagine," Grayson says. "I wouldn't wish it on anyone. You wonder if you ever really walked normally."
As we spoke, I was sitting at my desk in Bristol, Conn. Grayson was driving along a highway through the desert. He is tumor-free now. His daughters know him. And while he's been battling an infection where his foot was amputated, pretty soon he'll be in a new prosthetic. He is looking forward to that. Getting tapped "on my stump can hurt for two weeks," he says.
He is looking forward to the SuperContest starting. His handle is DJ Sly Bri. Nearly 400 people have signed up for the contest so far. It's on pace for the highest number of entrants ever. The payout for the winner will probably be north of $300,000.
"But I am not going to take it too seriously," Grayson says. "I have always been a break-even player. I put $800 in my account last year and it got as high as $3,000 and as low as $40. I ended up winning $500. I am going to enjoy what I have, and if things go bad there is nothing I can do about it.
"Now, it's just laugh and smile</offer>
Chad Millman
Brian Grayson had just won a poker tournament at The Mirage. He got a trophy, a nice one, and he was proud of it, both the winning and the reward. It was time to go back to his hotel, settle in and think about betting some football before he headed home to Albuquerque to see his wife, Stephanie, seven months pregnant, and his two young daughters.
Grayson is South Philly, born and raised. He started betting football pools with his uncle Butch before he was 10. After high school he spent more than a decade working parties and on the radio as DJ Sly Bri. But he wanted a bigger life. He went to Arizona State University, where he met a girl, and the girl was from New Mexico. He moved there to be with her, attended law school there, became a lawyer there and, instead of Saturday nights working turntables and Sundays at Philadelphia Eagles games, he made occasional trips to Las Vegas. "I'm a ham-and-egger now," he says. "My wife didn't want to be married to a gambler."
<offer style="font: 12px/16px verdana, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; word-spacing: 0px; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">As he walked through The Mirage's casino floor, he felt a stabbing pain in his ankle. It had been sore for a couple months, ever since a trip back east, but it wasn't anything like this. The pain was debilitating, so bad he had to sit down in the middle of the floor, amidst the tables and slots. He held onto his trophy. The Mirage security guards thought he was drunk and shooed him away. Grayson hobbled out to The Strip -- he was staying at Treasure Island next door -- but couldn't make it there. "I had to sit down in the middle of the sidewalk," he says.
The next day he needed a wheelchair to get off the plane at the airport. Stephanie met him at baggage claim with a pair of crutches. The diagnosis from the doctor was that it was a cyst and some ligament damage, and Grayson was scheduled for surgery. "It was supposed to be a 90-minute surgery," he remembers. "They were done in 20. They knew I had cancer."
Grayson's tone is rat-a-tat-tat South Philly. You can hear the streets in his voice. No nonsense, no pausing for dramatic effect. Matter of fact. I met him standing in line to sign up for the Las Vegas Hotel SuperContest. We were both lingering at the back of a crowd. He was on crutches. I looked down and noticed one of his feet was missing, his pant leg folded around his calf. We started talking about the contest, about all the people signing up, about what we were going to do that weekend. I hadn't known him 10 minutes -- I don't think I even knew his name yet -- before I asked him, "What happened to your foot?" Some people make you feel like you have to skirt an issue. Others, like Grayson, invite you to ask them anything, without saying a word.
The cancer in his foot might have saved his life, because that wasn't the only tumor. There was another one in his lungs. "You should have seen how it looked with me crying in the oncology department," Grayson told me when we caught up again on the phone this week. "With my pregnant wife and two kids. The doctor told me if my foot hadn't started hurting I would have been dead by now, they wouldn't have found the other tumor."
Five days before his third daughter was born, Grayson started chemotherapy. He was too sick to be in the room with Stephanie. Over the next several months he dropped more than 60 pounds, but the tumors didn't disappear. That July he had a trip planned to Vegas -- he was going to sign up for the SuperContest for the first time. "It's always been on my bucket list," he says. Instead, doctors removed 15 percent of his lung and amputated his foot.
Amputees complain about phantoms. An itch they can't scratch, an ache in a spot where nothing exists. There is nothing comparable for the fully limbed, a recurring state of being just out of reach. Pain followed by confusion followed by frustration, the feelings of a bad beat that never quite go away. "It's as bad as one can imagine," Grayson says. "I wouldn't wish it on anyone. You wonder if you ever really walked normally."
As we spoke, I was sitting at my desk in Bristol, Conn. Grayson was driving along a highway through the desert. He is tumor-free now. His daughters know him. And while he's been battling an infection where his foot was amputated, pretty soon he'll be in a new prosthetic. He is looking forward to that. Getting tapped "on my stump can hurt for two weeks," he says.
He is looking forward to the SuperContest starting. His handle is DJ Sly Bri. Nearly 400 people have signed up for the contest so far. It's on pace for the highest number of entrants ever. The payout for the winner will probably be north of $300,000.
"But I am not going to take it too seriously," Grayson says. "I have always been a break-even player. I put $800 in my account last year and it got as high as $3,000 and as low as $40. I ended up winning $500. I am going to enjoy what I have, and if things go bad there is nothing I can do about it.
"Now, it's just laugh and smile</offer>
